The Future
by cybertoothtiger
Summary: Just after Day 6 Debrief. Song is The Future by Leonard Cohen. One shot, but it revisits a character from Undercover Lover.


Jack let the door slam behind him, threw his keys on the table next to the hot plate, and howled. The pent-up rage, and fear, and pain poured out of him, but didn't leave. He fell against the wall, sliding down to rest his head on his knees as he gripped his head, sobbing. He wished he could tear his brain out of his skull and stop this.

After everything he had been through, that they would think _they_ could do what the Chinese could not, that _Burke_ could break him… He hadn't broken. He was sure of it. That they could think he would give up Holt—he didn't know how to bear it. If Ryan hadn't slipped him the key... His mind veered away from that thought. Yet another debt that he would never be able to repay. He was mortgaged to the hilt.

_I've seen the nations rise and fall  
I've heard their stories, heard them all  
but love's the only engine of survival  
Your servant here, he has been told  
to say it clear, to say it cold:  
It's over, it ain't going  
any further  
And now the wheels of heaven stop  
you feel the devil's riding crop  
Get ready for the future:  
it is murder.  
_

Gradually, after what seemed like hours, the sobbing stopped. He tipped over and lay on the floor, staring unseeing across the room at the dingy, grey walls. He felt drained and empty, but it wasn't out of him. He knew it would never be out of him.

Eventually he sat up.

He crawled to the sink in the corner of the small room and hauled himself up to splash some water on his face. He had to get out of here.

A little while later Jack was seated at the bar in some rat-hole, nursing his second beer with three shots already under his belt. The pain wasn't dulled yet, but he could feel the sharpest edge starting to come off. He heard a voice at his shoulder.

"Well, if it isn't Jack Brownlee. As I live and breathe."

The corner of his mouth lifted as he gave a short breath through his nose. "Jane." He turned.

"It's been years. Where you been hiding?" She looked older in a way that suggested life hadn't been particularly kind to her. But her top revealed she still had amazing… assets. He let her see him check her out. _Shit._ He should have thought about who he might meet in this place. He never would have made this kind of mistake two years ago. _You've lost your touch, Bauer._ He shook his head. He'd worked long and hard to establish this cover, and there was no reason to blow it now.

"Prison." He grunted. Jack turned back to the bar, draining his glass and raising a hand to the bartender for another.

"Huh. Well, you're not alone. Fred got sent up two years ago. May I?" She indicated the stool beside him.

"Be my guest." He didn't look at her as he took the beer from the bartender and paused. "Want anything?"

"I'll have what he's having," she told the man behind the counter. She glanced at the television screen behind the bar, silently replaying scenes of Valencia. "Hell of a day, yesterday, huh?"

Jack raised his beer to his lips. "Yeah. Hell of a day."

xxxxxx

Jack let the door slam behind him for the second time that day as he moved Jane into the room, his mouth covering hers, his hands scrabbling to untuck her shirt. They were both pretty drunk. A small voice in a corner of his brain told him this wasn't his best move. But he hadn't been with a woman in over two years. He couldn't be with Audrey. And Jane could let him out of his own life for a while. _Fuck it._ He lifted her, almost slamming her against the wall. He knew how she liked it, and he was in no mood to be gentle.

_Give me back my broken night  
my mirrored room, my secret life  
it's lonely here,  
there's no one left to torture.  
Give me absolute control  
over every living soul  
And lie beside me, baby,  
that's an order!  
_

xxxxxx

Jane propped herself on one elbow, lightly tracing the scars on the body of the man sleeping next to her. "What the hell happened to you, Jack?" she whispered.

_Things are going to slide, slide in all directions  
Won't be nothing  
Nothing you can measure anymore  
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world  
has crossed the threshold  
and it has overturned  
the order of the soul  
When they said REPENT REPENT  
I wonder what they meant._


End file.
